Natsume Bringing Three Nintendo Titles To E3

Natsume may have lost the ability to publish Marvelous’ Harvest Moon games, but they’re still bringing a few surprises to E3 this year. On their Facebook page, Natsume say they’ll have three games for Nintendo platforms at E3 this year.

These three titles will not include any Virtual Console games, although Natsume say they’ll have some news on that front as well. They don’t specify if the three games will be on 3DS or Wii U, although the tease sounds like it could be a mix of the two.

One of these games, announced this morning, is Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley, an original title developed by Natsume themselves. We’ll have to wait to find out what the other two are.

Aditionally, Natsume will also bring a new Reel Fishing game to Vita and information on this game will be shared in a week as well.

I think one of the most confusing points is that uh, people keep calling the Bokujou Monogatari/Farm Story series “Harvest Moon”, when Harvest Moon is the English IP name.

So Natsume didn’t /lose/ Harvest Moon in all sense. They just… Lost the series it was attached to.

AJ

How similar, legally, do you think Natsume is allowed to make Harvest Moon to Bokukou Monogatari in terms of the aesthetic and gameplay?

Zero_Destiny

That’s a hard question, and honestly there really isn’t a straight answer, per se. When it comes to legal matters, the outcome is …….. kinda random. ^^;; lol

But I would say, Natsume most likely won’t have anything to worry about. The idea of a farming simulator is pretty common place, and marriage systems in games are pretty common place as well.

Honestly, there isn’t exactly anything in the typical Bokukou Monogatari that hasn’t been done elsewhere. You can make a case of it seeming too eerily similar, but cases involving “art” being similar are always a crapshot and are just messy.

I doubt a company XSeed’s size would pursue legal matters anyways, given their limited budget and resources, but their parent company could in theory look into it. I do see Marvelous AQL not being afraid to flex that muscle, and the whole matter that lead to this situation in the first place does feel kind of cold (maybe bad blood, maybe not, who knows, but totally feels cold).

Once again though, not too worried. Natsume would have a pretty solid defense, as they built up the brand over the many years, operates in the US, and legally owns the name. While Marvelous AQL would be at a major disadvantage being a Japanese company. It makes these legal matters a bit harder and kinda more convoluted. ^^:;

Of course they do have XSeed, and I’m sure Marvelous has their own team of lawyers, but we’re looking at ether being too taxing on XSeed (who are a small company), or too wasteful on Marvelous’s part. They would probably really wanna have it out with Natsume if they did do this, because I see this just being endless legal fees that advantage no one involved, especially since I doubt Natsume is not really too much of a threat to them, just a blip on their radar.

Generally a smart way to handle legal matters is to avoid it all together or settle outside of court, and well, seeing as we’re looking at smaller companies here, I doubt they would want to (at the very least they should know not to) waste their money like this.

Hmm, well legally, I think there’s the main things they can’t do: They can’t have a Harvest Goddess and probably not a Witch Princess, they can’t have the familiar characters that might show up otherwise, they can’t have similar unique terminology (like Harvest Sprites), they can’t have similarly named locations, ect.

Basically, people who are thinking that this game may have any real reference to the previous entries may feel shot down. Natsume can recreate the basic mechanics of crop raising and animal tending as the other Bokujou Monogatari games have without much legal worry– it’s the other bits that won’t show up.

Reki Honoo

Do the three games just include games made in north america by them, or does it also include localizing games from japan? I’m just curious.

andref

Hard to say, only thing that can be said is E3 is used to showcase games intended to be released in north america

Reki Honoo

This could mean we might get a certain robot game that most fans have been wanting.

Likely not with Natsume, Marvelous could make a Story of Seasons Vita like they made PSP games.
Natsume is likely more accustomed with Nintendo development, as previous projects tend to be on them.

FlobotingIt

Oh, I wasn’t aware of this fact… Thank you for the information! I would HOPE that the Vita wouldn’t get a port… But… Well, any Harvest Moon is better than none… I’d just hope it would be of Magical Melody if anything… Well, I guess not to fret. Wild Season will come eventually!

Apparently they’ll have VC news at E3, and they seem excited about it, so I imagine it’s good news.

I think how it works is that the localization company has the main right to rerelease any old games they did for digital services like this in their respective countries– so I /imagine/, at the least, that Natsume will be free to release the GB, GBC, N64, GBA, and DS games that’re potentially gonna show up.

GameTaco

This got me thinking of another hot topic in regards to Harvest Moon: What are the odds that one of these two factions might finally decide to remake Harvest Moon 64?

Since there’s not enough left of the game itself to bring to the Virtual Console for official emulation, I can see either Natsume trying to make a “spiritual remake” (in which places and names have been changed to protect the innocent) or Marvelous putting together an “enhanced remake” that features many of the improvements the series has gotten over the years (and legal use of the names and likenesses of its staple characters, of course).

Winner gets the hearts of the fans and, I dunno, a lifetime supply of pink turnips or something.

Fans of our titles like Adventures to Go! and Mystic Chronicles will be excited to know we’re currently working on localizing a new RPG title in a similar vein! We’re very excited to be publishing this game, and we should have an official announcement regarding it soon!”

The JRPG draws near is a reference to the classic Dragon Warrior localization of the original Dragon Quest games. DQ7 has been leaked as being localized by Nintendo, that only leaves DQX (they won’t be localizing a MMO), DQM, and maybe Rocket Slime 3.

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